Brolucizumab-related intraocular inflammation in Japanese patients with age-related macular degeneration: a short-term multicenter study
Ichiro Maruko, Annabelle A. Okada, Tomohiro Iida, Taiji Hasegawa, Takahiko Izumi, Moeko Kawai, Ruka Maruko, Makiko Nakayama, Akiko Yamamoto, Hideki Koizumi, Tamaki Tamashiro, Nobuhiro Terao, Sorako Wakugawa, Ryusaburo Mori, Hajime Onoe, Koji Tanaka, Yu Wakatsuki, Kanako Itagaki, Akihito Kasai, Masashi Ogasawara, Tetsuju Sekiryu, Hiroaki Shintake, Yukinori Sugano
Abstract
We report short-term data on the development of intraocular inflammation (IOI) after intravitreal brolucizumab injection for exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in Japanese patients in this letter.Brolucizumab (Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland), a new anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) agent for the treatment of exudative AMD, differs from previous anti-VEGF agents by its smaller molecular weight allowing administration at high concentrations and presumably improved tissue penetration.In the HAWK and HARRIER studies, brolucizumab was reportedly non-inferior to aflibercept in terms of visual outcomes and more effective in reducing intraretinal and subretinal fluid [1].Early US reports regarding the adverse effect of IOI [2] prompted a Novartis-appointed Safety Review Committee (SRC) to re-evaluate data from the clinical trials [3].At the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Heier et al. [4] described SRC findings suggesting that female gender and Japanese ethnicity were risk factors.